Drosophila testes EST project identifies germline sex-specific genes and a high proportion of novel genes. J. Andrews 1, G. Bouffard 2, B. Oliver 1. 1) Lab Cell & Dev Biol, NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD; 2) NIH Intramural Sequencing Center, National Institutes of Health, Gaithersburg MD, USA.
The germline exhibits dramatic sexual dimorphism where cells undergo either spermatogenesis or oogenesis: elaborate and highly regulated differentiation programs likely to require a battery of genes. To facilitate the large-scale analysis of regulated transcription underlying germline sex determination and gametogenesis, we have undertaken a Drosophila testes expressed sequence tag (EST) project. We have analyzed approximately 3200 ESTs from the 5'-ends of randomly selected testes cDNAs. When assembled into high quality contigs these ESTs comprise approximately 1700 clots of non-overlapping sequences. 47% of these clots are not found in the current BDGP EST database. Comparison with public databases revealed: 1) Significant identities or similarities with known germline-specifiic or testes-specific genes in Drosophila and other organisms, And, 2) a high proportion with no significant similarity with known genes in any organism. These represent a rich source of new genes involved in gametogenesis.